Saturday, November 27, 2010

I've been dancing since I was three years old. For the last few years I've been trying to get back to it being a regular thing for me, at least one or two classes a week. Gone are the days when I didn't have to work and could dance every day. One of my happiest times was when it seemed I did nothing but dance everyday, all day.

This time around I've finally realized that I'm really over ballet. These days when I find myself in a ballet class I immediately feel myself tense up. It just doesn't represent relaxation anymore. All I can think is to stand up straight! Tighten all my muscles and get ready to work really hard. The hard work is the good part but the rest...? I want to feel happy moving. But I don't, I get really serious and rigid. So I stopped taking ballet classes and started taking contemporary classes. They're something more along the lines of jazz-African-world-folk-hip-hop. And I love them.

Everything about dancing this way is new to me. In comparison to ballet it's totally unstructured and free and fun and sometimes even kind of silly and it's awesome. But without that vocabulary of movements that I've stored for years (which is probably another reason ballet bores me to tears) I sometimes feel like it's more difficult for me to link it all together, to remember the right thing to do with my arms, to miss the right beat where there's a missed beat. I suddenly feel like a mediocre dancer and I'm not used to it. I certainly haven't been at my best for a while now but changing to a completely new style has dropped me back considerably. Every week I mildly dread it and every week I have the best time. I know I'm not the best dancer in class and I know that I often miss one tiny step lose track of the entire combination but I'm not going to stop and one of these days I know that I'm going to do a perfect combination and it's going to feel easy and natural, the way it used to. And then I'll try something new.

Friday, November 26, 2010

I wonder sometimes if maybe I don't take things seriously enough. I mean, not serious things, but seemingly small things. Like a compliment from a stranger. And I don't mean a wolf whistle from a passing car, I mean a kind and genuine compliment. When it happens I definitely accept it at full weight but I realize suddenly, months later that it seemed to just slip away. I should try harder to make it last.

Just went to look for a picture and saw the quote, "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." -Dr. Seuss

I also just thought: it is an average expectation, to believe you deserve respect.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

I had an astrological reading by an evolutionary astrologer once. This means that what he includes in the way that he reads someone's charts is their past lives, karma, and tries to help us understand our dharma. It was very interesting and because, he said, it was easiest for him to explain by making it into a story, that's what he did. And he referred to influential people in my charts as different royal figures -to express how much influence they may have in my life. This was also one of the most accurate readings I've ever had. He taped it for me and every so often I would listen to it and become focused on some part that seemed to actually have come into play in my life. At the time I got this reading I could barely understand any of the events he was seeing because they were explained in such a general way: 'There's a man in your life. He has a lot of power -we'll call him the king- he has some level of control over some part of your life. This is going to change. It will end somehow and when it does you'll be in the spotlight, in a good way. It'll be a time when you get to show people who you really are.' Interestingly enough this did happen and by no means was it: A) anything I'd ever have believed would happen and B) anything I could have consciously made happen.He also explained to me that my North Node is in Scorpio which means that my dharma will be to go with inclinations to act on Scorpio-like characteristics. This is how I'll achieve happiness. This was baffling. It was soooo vague, "Go toward Scorpio." he kept saying. It's the thing that always stood out the most and has absolutely haunted me. I've spent hours reading all different explanations of what Scorpio is and how someone who is not a Scorpio could be very like a Scorpio. There are pages of this online. Add to that the pages on what it means to have a Scorpio North Node, what it means in a particular house, etc., etc. I've been sure I had it all figured out only to feel myself baffling all over again a million times. I lost track of that guy but not too long ago I got a simple tarot reading in which the reader used my birth chart and probably other charts to tell me what the past present and future look like and she got the past dead right. Like crazy dead right. Again, all in metaphors and general because this was by email actually, and I hadn't told her anything but when and where I was born. But even in a generalized story book way the details were uncanny. So the future is looking bright. But I can't tell you what it is yet because it hasn't happened. And tonight I just read this: "Scorpio, which likes to hold on dearly to the end, and then releases fully and with determination" and I thought: that is EXACTLY how I am. So I guess I've got it even if I can't understand it or detect it, but it sure is easy to recognize when someone puts it in the right words.

I'm realizing that I use this as sort of a public journal. Sort of the technological version of an artists book where you keep ideas and things that you're learning and inspiration. I've just begun a course on Kabbalah conducted online and am sure that I'll start to refer to things that I'm learning there the same way I refer to astrology and dreams. Another piece of my life that I find connected to all these others is acupuncture. It still surprises me that while one day I'll read about the Sun passing through the sign of Scorpio being about cleansing and being somewhat exhausting, the next day when I visit my doctor and tell her how I'm feeling she'll tell me that this is because of the season. In Fall we need to cleanse and detox, we get worn out, it's a transition period. And I think how fascinating it is that all of these systems based in nature have the same understanding of the seasons. How interesting it is that all of these practices of following nature have observed the same things.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

My Free Will Astrology horoscope for this week:

The Sanskrit word buddhi refers to the part of us that adores the truth. It's good at distinguishing between what's real and what's false, and is passionately attracted to liberation. Although it may go into long periods of dormancy in some of us, buddhi never falls asleep completely. It's always ready to jump into action if we call on it. According to my reading of the astrological omens, Aquarius, the buddhi aspect of your psyche will be extra special big strong and bright in the coming week. In my opinion, that's better than winning the lottery.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Ugh, Moon passing over Chiron / Neptune conjunction is UNCOMFORTABLE. Am cranky and unsatisfied. All I want is to break all these lame habits and be FREEEEEEE! But that number one habit of self doubt has a tiny voice embedded in my head that keeps telling I may not succeed and whether I do or don't, will I even know? How? When? This is happening for everyone somewhere in their life. Somewhere you want something that seems so important that you feel like it might take a miracle. But really, it's not a miracle it's just REAL and you just have to accept that it's TRUE. It can happen, it is happening. Big love to everyone struggling with something today.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

The Chinese grocery store by my house has the black rubber flip-flops that I wear year round for $1.49. This is a third the price they are elsewhere (i.e. Target). They also have black rice macaroni which is, as the name suggests, black. I think it'll look amazing with veggies and olive oil. There's an entire aisle of packaged instant ramen soup in a rainbow of flavors (except "Oriental" as Top Ramen, the prevalent "regular" store, brand calls it) and a whole 'nother aisle of noodles. Seaweed is also a fraction of the price you'd pay at Whole Foods -which is the only "regular" grocery store I've been able to find it in. The only thing I couldn't find was Miso paste and this was particularly surprising as there was yet a whole aisle of soup broth and other pastes including quite a few Indian curry pastes. But then I didn't look for tofu and they could have been together.... The fruit on special was Jujube which is small and sort of like a very sweet, but bland, apple in flavor and texture with a seed in the middle like an olive. It's used, dried and ground, in herbal remedies to alleviate anxiety. It is also said to make people fall in love. How interesting for those two to be used as sort of opposites. Either you can cure your anxiety so that you can fall in love or you can attract love that will cure your anxiety. I also remembered why I haven't been in there in nearly ten years. That smell will follow you around for the rest of the day -what is that, fish? In other news I met one of those people today that make you remember that everything happens for a reason. A character. For some reason these people are always dancers these days. That shouldn't seem the least bit odd to me, as a dancer, that I should be most enthralled with other dancers -as artists I admire, mentors. For years I was surrounded by musicians. This is not bad, either, but it's like I was just out of stride with myself by one step. People who are necessary to my art but can't really teach me much. And then there were the visual artists -even further from what I'm about but still so interesting. I feel that if there's anything I can make in the world it's a figure or a motion. I even enjoy walking and have been told I do that well, too. Anyway, I keep meeting these people lately who all happen to be amazing dancers. And as I have temporarily given up ballet, each of these people is asking me to do something outside of my vocabulary. There's something I'm really loving about being told to do all of these things that would have been really weird in ballet. Back to the original point. I feel almost daily that I'm not in the right world. There are a million ways to do anything including live a life and I'm still trying to figure out how to live mine better. In harmony with what I need and love. The parts of it that I'm finding particularly challenging are figuring out the little bits that others are doing differently and with success. And every time I come across one of these people who's lives I see a bit of (and then fill in the gaping holes in my head with lovely, happy playdough) I think: this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Dancing in unusual ways and spending a month in Brazil and wearing a haircut no one would take seriously in a bank. Supposedly I work in the arts, too, but it certainly isn't the same. So when i come across someone I feel bizarrely attracted to (where there's something about it you feel in your bones) lately, I think: this is an opportunity to learn how to live. And it seems so far away now that I tell myself: maybe not until your next life will you live as a mostly unemployed dancer, happily and with grace, but you've got to stick around now and soak it up and make life bearable until then.

I have a dear friend who is an amazing dancer and athlete and has been suffering with a spinal injury for quite some time now. She desperately needs surgery she cannot afford and friends have set up a ChipIn fund to help. If you'd like to contribute please use the widget below or go here to read more about her story.

Friday, November 5, 2010

I just remembered this and absolutely had to share it. For as many dreams as I've had about people breaking into my house the other night I had a dream about preventative measures. I don't remember it very well but I remember things like having a handyman come over and together we inspected window latches and door locks, etc. and he advised what was strong and what needed work. For some reason it didn't immediately spark anything for me but when I remembered it just now I thought how poignant it was. And for all my over-empathizing, this last week or two I have been pretty impressed with myself for not allowing other peoples energy to wreak havoc on me. Many a touchy situation has come and gone without my being riddled with someone else's fear and anxiety (only my own, but that I can handle). It was a strange thing to realize and has been an even stranger thing to learn to handle.